Every week I am asked which job software to buy — NextMinute, ServiceM8, Gojee, WorkflowMax, Tradify. The honest answer is that the software matters less than the path the information takes: what happens first, where it lives, who touches it and how it gets to the invoice. Fix that and most tools work. Skip it and none of them do.
Who owes you and how long for, the end of the workflow, where the leaks show. Demonstration data.
Not a programme. We pick the piece that fits what is bugging you this month, do it together on your real jobs and figures and you take it home.
One page, ten boxes. Enquiry, quote, schedule, do the work, variations, materials, timesheets, invoice, payment, follow-up. Where does the information get lost?
Most small trade businesses run five to eight disconnected apps. We work out which two or three earn their keep and what the rest are costing in double handling.
The steps written so the next person can do them. Not a manual, a page. It is also what a piece of software has to fit, instead of the other way round.
Only once the workflow is drawn do we look at software and I have sat inside most of the trade platforms with clients. I do not sell any of them.
Illustrations of the kind of work that happens in a session, described by trade. Free mentoring through Business Mentors NZ is confidential, so these are examples, not case studies.
Job information lives on the whiteboard, in texts and in the owner’s head. Enquiry to invoice gets mapped, three places where it drops are found and job software is chosen to match the map, not the other way round.
Xero and operations run as two separate businesses. Linking the job records to the invoicing removes the monthly "did we bill that?" scramble.
Quoting, materials and WIP each live in a different tool. The upgrade is fewer tools and one agreed path and the month-end materials reconciliation goes from days to an afternoon.
I help trade businesses simplify the path from customer enquiry to paid invoice.
I am inside trade workflows every day as a bookkeeper and I build and use AI on them. That is the only way to know where a small trade business gains from the new ways of working and where it does not, you have to be on the ground using it. So Exploring Tradie has no prescription. We explore, one piece at a time and keep what works.
Volunteer mentor with Business Mentors New Zealand for seven years. Handouts on this thread are coming, free.
Try this. Ask your own AI about me. Download the briefing pack and ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini can talk you through what I do, what it costs and whether I am a fit for your business.
Download the AI briefing packTell me what is bugging you this month and we will spend two hours on it.
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